NEW PARTNERS OF SHARK-REFERENCES:

The Oceania Chondrichthyan Society Inc. (OCS) was founded in 2005 and is a joint venture between Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Islands to promote and facilitate education, conservation and scientific study of chondrichthyan fishes (sharks, skates, rays, and chimaeras).

Would you like to become a shark-reference partner? Please contanct us per E-mail!

Upcoming Meetings:

EEA2016 will be hosted by the Shark Trust and held at Bristol Aquarium, Bristol UK.

The conference will provide an excellent forum for discussion and networking bringing together researchers, advocates and students from across Europe and beyond.

With sessions reflecting the three pillars of the Shark Trust’s work and the key objectives of the recently launched Global Shark and Ray Initiative (GSRI), the Shark Trust invites you to submit abstracts for oral (15 minute and 5 minute options) and poster presentations under the following themes:

There will also be a number of general sessions covering a broad range of topics depending on submissions.

The Shark Trust encourages speakers to consider the potential management or conservation applications of their research and reflect them in their presentations - abstract selection will be undertaken by the Conference Committee.

Registration: Don't miss out on the EARLY BIRD registration rates: register today!

More information on the keynote speakers and social opportunities will be released through the website in the coming weeks - so check back for more details!Hope to see you all in October!eea@sharktrust.org

To conserve the world’s oceans we must go beyond science, and use it to inform policy and management, and ultimately to catalyze change. The Society for Conservation Biology's International Marine Conservation Congress (IMCC) brings together conservation professionals and students to develop new and powerful tools to further marine conservation science and policy.

IMCCs are organized by the Marine Section of the Society for Conservation Biology.

UPDATED INFORMATION AT http://encuentro2016.squalus.org/V Colombian meeting on Chondrichthyes (CMC) from 24 to 28 October 2016Deadline for submission of abstracts/Fecha límite de envío de resúmenes: June 30, 2016Date of response by the Organizing Committee/Fecha de respuesta por parte del Comité Organizador: July 30, 2016please visit:http://encuentro2016.squalus.org/

The IWSC4 website is now live at http://www.iwsc4.com/, and registration and abstracts are being accepted online for oral and poster sessions. The deadline for abstract submission is January 15, 2016. Additional details can be found on the website, along with a printable meeting poster (poster attached here as well).This international gathering of whale shark scientists, conservationists and decision-makers will feature the most recent advances in research, conservation and management of whale sharks globally. The meeting will further highlight research on whale shark populations in the Arabian Gulf. The conference will integrate six themes: 1) Growth and Reproduction, 2) Behavior and Ecology; 3) Physiology; 4) Genetics; 5) Wildlife Tourism; and 6) Threats and Management. Meeting proceedings will be published in the peer-reviewed, open access journal Qscience Connect (http://www.qscience.com/loi/connect).

Registration is now open for the IUCN World Conservation Congress, taking place from 1 to 10 September 2016 in Hawaiʻi, U.S.A. Visit the Congress website to register for the event and book your accommodation.

SIBIC 2016: VI Iberian Congress of ichthyology. 21.-24. June 2016, Murcia, Spain;a special session will be dedicated to Chondrichthyan research!

Annual joint meeting of Ichthyologists and herpetologists including the American Elasmobranch Society meeting. 2016: New Orleans, Louisiana, 6.-10. July 2016, New Orleans. Lousiana, USA. http://www.asih.org/meetings

Newly described species/Taxonomic News:

EXTANT:CONCHA, F.J. & EBERT, D.E. & LONG, D.J. (2016): Notoraja martinezi sp. nov., a new species of deepwater skate and the first record of the genus Notoraja Ishiyama, 1958 (Rajiformes: Arhynchobatidae) from the eastern Pacific Ocean. Zootaxa, 4098 (1): 179–1902New species: Notoraja martineziAbstract: A new arhynchobatid skate, Notoraja martinezi, sp. nov., is described from four specimens collected from the eastern Central Pacific from Costa Rica to Ecuador and between depths of 1256–1472 m. The new species is placed in the genus Notorajabased on the long and flexible rostrum and its proportionally long tail with respect to total length. This species is distinct from its congeners in the Western Pacific by the straight margins of its rostrum, long anterior lobes of pelvic fins, and its abundant and very well developed caudal thorns.

FOSSIL:

IVANOV, A.O. & NESTELL, M.K. & NESTELL, G.P. (2015): Middle Permian fish microremains from the Early Capitanian of the Guadalupe Mountains, West Texas, USA. Micropaleontology, 61 (4-5): 301-312New species: Cooleyella duffiniAbstract: A diverse fish microremain assemblage, including the symmoriiform sharkStethacanthulus, jalodontid Texasodus, hybodontiform "Polyacrodus", neoselachian Cooleyella; haplolepid, elonichthyid actinopterygians and Varialepis; as well as undetermined symmoriiforms, euselachians and actinopterygians, is described from the Rader Limestone Member of the Bell Canyon Formation (Capitanian, Middle Permian) of the "Rader Slide" section, the Guadalupe Mountains, West Texas, USA. The assemblage contains widely distributed taxa and one new species Cooleyella duffini found at two Permian localities of Nevada and Texas. The internal structure in the teeth of S. meccaensis is first reconstructed and illustrated using microtomography.

It lived millions of years ago and was three times as large as the great white shark: the megalodon. So far its extinction has been explained with the onset of an ice age. However, researchers have now come to the conclusion that responsibility for the decline of the monster shark lays not with the climate, but with other species.

Every scar tells a story. Whales migrating through tropical waters often carry crater-like wounds, and cookie-cutter sharks looked like the culprits. But we lacked data on how frequent suchattacks by sharks on whales might be, and where and when they happen.

Latest analysis shows that human limbs share a genetic programme with the gills of cartilaginous fishes such as sharks and skates, providing evidence to support a century-old theory on the origin of limbs that had been widely discounted.